Remember how Dr. McCoy used a tricorder on “Star Trek” to diagnose medical problems? It was a cool piece of fiction that might evolve into reality — possibly in San Diego.

The X Prize Foundation last year created a long-term, worldwide contest in which $7 million will be awarded to the team that produces the best device for detecting and monitoring a variety of diseases and conditions. The so-called Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize has drawn hundreds of competitors, including at least 10 teams from San Diego County. The latest competitor is one of the region’s academic powerhouses: San Diego State University.

The school said it has quickly pulled together 60 people from across campus and elsewhere to work on an entry that is among the most ambitious science and engineering collaborations in SDSU history. Participants include bioengineers, software specialists and business experts.

They are led by Lambert Ninteman, 37, a graduate student who is such a hard-core “Star Trek” fan that he approached Nichelle Nichols, the actress who played Lt. Uhura, when he was only 4 years old.

“I asked her if she knew R2-D2,” Ninteman remembered. “She said, ‘Oh honey, that’s the wrong movie!’ I’d like to apologize and let her know that I definitely know what the tricorder is about.”

San Diego State’s X Prize team is developing a prototype tricorder that will basically be a greatly modified Android phone with attachments that can spot and track medical problems.

Work is in the early stages. The SDSU team has turned to the Salk Institute for advice, and it plans to look at technology from Space and Naval Warfare Systems Pacific in San Diego to see whether it can gain an edge over other competitors.

San Diego State might need every advantage it can get. The X Prize Foundation hasn’t released the full list of contestants, which numbers more than 200. But the foundation did say the competitors include Albert Yu-Min Lin, the academic superstar who co-leads the Distributed Health Lab at the University of California San Diego. Lin is a technologist who uses non-invasive technologies to explore hard-to-reach places without damaging the environment. He’s made major archaeological finds, and he’s pushing hard to improve global health care through emerging technologies.

So is Matt Banet, the founder of Sotera Wireless in Sorrento Valley. He’s on a team fielded by Perminova, a life-sciences company in La Jolla.

“I like the idea of a simple device that is wireless and which is minimally invasive to the patient,” Banet said. “And San Diego is the hub in this country for wireless health care.”

The Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize said the top three finishers in the contest will be teams whose tricorders “assess a set of 16 distinct conditions and five vital signs in a pool of people within three days, while providing a strong consumer experience in the areas of usability, understandability, engaging and desirable presentation of information, and ability of the solution to willingly invoke action on the part of the user.”

One more thing: The overall device can’t weigh more than five pounds.

The registration phase of the competition is underway. The qualifying round begins next year, followed by competition among the finalists in 2015. The winner will be chosen no later than June 2015. The foundation said $7 million will go to the winner, and $2 million and $1 million, respectively, will go to the teams that finish second and third.

The X Prize Foundation uses money to fuel competitions that are meant to spur major advances in technology. Its best-known contest to date — the Ansari X Prize — focused on private, manned spaceflight. In 2004, Scaled Composites of Mojave won $10 million for becoming the first nongovernmental team to build and launch a spacecraft capable of carrying three people that was shot into space twice within two weeks.

Another of the foundation’s competitions — to place robots on the moon — is taking place along with the tricorder challenge.

Roberta Gottlieb, director of the SDSU BioScience Center and a member of that university’s tricorder team, isn’t intimidated by the tricorder requirements.

“This is going to be tough, not because of the technology, which is within reach, but because a tricorder involves integrating a lot of components,” Gottlieb said. “But San Diego State is really good at collaboration, and we have the flexibility and openness to bring the right people together. I think that a lot of people are going to be surprised by what we do.”